Arrogance seems a consistent tactic in the uber-hot gamification segment. "Uber-hot" and arrogance seem to go together like hand in glove, but perhaps arrogance is a the most sustainable strategy.

Arrogance feels cheaper than the Thank You economy's endless give. This piece explores the question of if arrogance is sustainable. What do you think? Where do you come out on the Arrogance or Thank You debate.

Trending AND Best SellersGood idea to have TRENDING and BEST SELLERS categories. B2B SaaS companies may not have "best seller". "May not" because we believe every online marketing team should have an ecommerce store, but few B2B marketers take us up on that belief.

Trending is what is happening NOW. Best Sellers are what has happened over a longer period (say a month, quarter or year). Trending is a great word since it implies the influence of the "mob".

The best "trending" is where the guts of the trending engine is shared and easy to see. Digg's voting engine or Facebook's thumbs up / down make it easy to SEE the tribe and their votes.

We added Trending as a category today, but are manually calculating what should be in the category form Google Analytics. Better to automate it all and then share what you automated. If you count sales, shares and subscriptions (immediately after) TELL YOUR CUSTOMERS and they will give you the kind of feedback your system needs.

If you aren't that sophisticated yet do something like what we are doing. Share your GA results so customers know how you are calculating "trending" (reminds us we need to add that). Not as good as trending based on easy to SEE feedback loops, but trust creating nonetheless.

Content Shock Author CommentMark Schaefer was generous enough to leave a comment on our Curagami post about Content Shock. We repaid that favor by purchasing Mark's Content Code book. As we noted in the post we will report back on Mark's book. If you've already read Content Code, please share your review.

Market Makers MatterJanet McKean & Drew Baird Are Market Makers. Market makers see what is next a fraction before the rest of us. Janet's gift of vision is in the specialty gift space. Drew Baird is the founder of Moon-Audio.com and the creator of Dragon Audio Cables.

Market makers matter now more than ever. Our advice? Become a market maker and learn from Janet and Drew.l

Einstein’s Web Marketing LessonsWe enjoyed the nerdy HBO Einstein and Eddington movie about how the Cambridge mathematician (Eddington) confirms Einstein's General Theory of Relativity by crushing the known and more predictable Newtonian universe.

The web has two camps too. There are Newtonians who believe in an absolute truth we were never able to find during our 7 years as a DIrector of Ecommerce or our 15+ years of online marketing experience. This post shares Einstein's marketing lessons.

New Ecommerce Meetup June 9 Six PM RTP Frontier Center

The New EcommerceI've been asked to kickoff the first Triangle Ecommerce Meetup with a discussion of the New Ecommerce tomorrow night (Tuesday June 9) at the RTP Frontier Center in the Research Triangle Park.

SEO FreakshowSmall to Medium Sized Businesses are caught in a vicious Chinese finger puzzle. The more they pull the more stuck they become. We say REJECT the CATCH-22 of trying to be us (SEOs, Internet marketers) and run away and join the circus instead. Here's why.

Imagine if you were one of the first contributors to Mashable, TechCrunch or the Huffington post. Life for those first contributors is good now. Life for those trying to elbow their way in is not nearly as good. Stop elbowing because we have a cool idea.

APPLY to be one of the first 5 Scenttrail Authors / Curators and Contributors, become an owner and find greatness...together.

The Medium Is The Message We may have read a better explanation of Curagami’s raison d’être than Medium founder Ev Williams, but we don’t remember when. Ev’s discussion of the move from widget focus (adding features) to the Jungian thing – helping customers self actualize and so become more actualized in turn – is an ecommerce must read.

The Platform Revolution "Google is all about big brands now," a frustrated customer said. The complaint was about how this Small to Medium Sized Business couldn't win organic listings anymore. We disagreed. Google isn't rewarding top organic listings to Big Brands. Big brands look and feel more like platforms and that is why they are winning in spite of themselves.

Some finally "get SEO" as tactical advantage ends. Online marketing must win hearts, minds & loyalty. Brands must build online community SEO not so much anymore. Those and other reasons are why I'm not an SEO.